Goelak, the Place Where the Migoi Was Defeated

Goelak is the huge expanse of communal pastures located directly opposite the mountain range where the source of the Koina river, a tributary of the famous Mochu river, begins. The high altitude pastures at Goelak are ideal for summer grazing. Every year several herders would take their yaks there to graze.

Sometimes entire families would travel along with their animals, but at other times only one or two members of the family would go. In one particular year it so happened that a young boy and his older sister were the only herders in Goelak for a while. They made their camp in a cave which offered them a good view of the mountainside. Besides, sitting at the mouth of the cave they could keep an eye on their animals.

The young pastoralists knew no other way of life and so it was with natural ease that they carried out all the chores that were necessary to live in the wilderness. While one of them collected the firewood the other fetched the water from the brook. They watched the animals and ran after them in efforts to keep them from straying.

In their spare time the sister would spin yak wool and the brother played in the meadows or carved faces and figures on pieces of wood. Every few weeks one of them had to go down to their home to replenish their food supplies. While they enjoyed going home, meeting their parents, brothers and sisters and eating the delicious meals which their mother prepared especially for them, they dreaded the journey back.

They had to carry the provisions themselves as they did not have any horses and they could not possibly risk taking a yak to the lower altitudes in the height of the summer heat.

The young girl, who was only a few years older than her brother, assumed the responsibility of being a mother to the boy. As she gathered and packed her empty bags she reminded her brother of all the things that he should not do and all the things that he should. He should not venture too deep into the forests.

Even if an animal were to go missing he should wait until she returned. He was not to drink the water from the stagnant pools, even though they had strange and appealing colors, they were poisonous. He should stay in the cave after dark and always keep the fire burning.

Looking back several times at her brother, who was already cheerfully prancing about along with the young animals in the meadow, she descended the slopes with a feeling of uneasiness. She had never felt like this before.

As soon as she got home she pleaded with her mother to hurry up with the process of sorting out, preparing and packing the provisions for her to take back to the grazing camp. But the barley grains had to be dried in the sun, roasted and then finally ground. One of her brothers had gone to Punakha to get chilies several days ago but had not yet returned and she had to wait for him.

The girl fretted and worried about her little brother for some unknown reason. It was only three days later that she could finally start her return journey.

Despite the heavy load she made the journey back quickly and by the time dusk was being engulfed by darkness she reached the mouth of the cave. Many of the yaks had gathered together, some were lying down on the ground ruminating and looking towards her, as if in recognition, while the others stood still, calm and serene in the quiet evening light. But her brother was nowhere to be seen.

She looked around, put down her luggage and called out into the darkness, "Where are you? I am back!" Her voice echoed eerily in the empty cave. Her heart sank when she saw that the fire had not been lit in the hearth and the firewood which she had gathered before she left lay where it was before, untouched.

There was a strange smell in the cave, it was not the familiar smell of the earth, bird-droppings and roots-smells common enough in a cave. The smell was strong, something like rotting cheese.

"No, it cannot be cheese, it must be my brother, he is dead and it must be his body." The thought struck her like a thunderbolt emerging from a clear blue sky.

She groped around and located the flint stone and the piece of metal in its usual hiding place, a crack in the rock face. She struggled with the flint stone for a long time before she could light the wick in the small oil lamp. As the lamp flickered and cast an orangeish-yellow glow in the cave she looked around for her brother's body.

There was no sign of it nor were there any signs to suggest that there had been any struggle or disturbance. Then her gaze fell on the deepest and darkest part of the cave and, as her eyes slowly adjusted to the flickering light, she saw an enormous shadow. Her first reaction was to turn towards the mouth of the cave and see what was causing the shadow.

But all that she saw was the velvety gray-black sky and the first stars of the night. There was nothing else.

Soon the entire body was engulfed in a flaming ball of fire.

She continued to stand where she was and studied what seemed to be a shadow. She squinted and peered into the darkness, it was not a shadow.

It was a body of sorts... the body of a hideous creature. It was crouching on the floor with its back facing her. "What could it be?" she wondered, it was bigger than anything she had ever seen in her life.

She was a brave girl, one had to be brave living in the wilderness all by oneself with only the yaks and a young boy for company. She was also a wise girl. She decided that whatever it was, the cave was still her home and therefore the safest place to be on a dark night.

She would not run away but would adopt clever means to overcome the mysterious creature. She kept her outward calm but her mind raced frantically, "What shall I do? What shall I do?"

Finally, she thought, "This must be what the elders call a migoi. Perhaps it has killed and eaten my brother and now it wants to eat me too." She took one quick look at the monster, "But I don't want to be eaten by it," she thought. "First, I have to defend myself from this monster and only then will I search for my brother," she decided.

Before she actually knew what she was going to do she found herself addressing the dark visitor in the cave, "Little Brother, help me to start the fire in the hearth." At this the migoi shook its head from side to side. What an enormous head it had!

She went ahead and lit a blazing fire. Now in the firelight she could see the creature more clearly. It had turned around and was facing the hearth, still seated in the same place and position, as it studied her closely. "I must not let it realize that I have recognized it and am frightened," she thought to herself.

Then she calmly put a pot of water on the stove and waited for it to boil. As the water began to rise in frothy bubbles, she took several measures of the freshly ground barley flour and mixed it with the water. She let it cook into a thick dough.

Next, she took the pot down from the fire and began to kneed the dough with a sturdy wooden ladle. All along she chatted with her visitor who watched her every move and continued to shake its head from side to side.

She then rubbed some butter into the palms of her hands and scooped up a big portion of the dough which she shaped into a round ball. She stuck her thumb into the center of the ball of dough and made a deep hole into which she placed a generous lump of butter.

Barley flour prepared in this way, called dongkho, is a favorite preparation among the Layaps. She casually handed the dongkho to the migoi, who, after some initial hesitation, stretched out its arm and took it with its big furry paw.

She quickly set about making a similar ball for herself as the migoi watched not quite knowing what to do with the dongkho. Normally, as the butter melts with the heat of the dough, pieces of the dongkho are broken off from the ball, dipped in the butter and eaten, all the time ensuring that the melted butter does not spill out.

But instead, the girl began to dip her fingers in the melted butter and rub them, first on her legs and then her arms and finally over her entire body. The creature watched her carefully and began to imitate her. There was so much butter that the creature's fur stood on its body like spikes, making it look like an enormous giant porcupine!

Then she proceeded to eat the dongkho, the migoi did the same. It obviously liked what it had eaten because it kept on extending its arms towards her, with open palms, as she made two more balls of dough. But this time, instead of putting butter in the hole, she put in hot embers which she carefully withdrew from the fire.

The migoi watched on, fascinated. She passed a dongkho filled with red hot embers to the migoi who took it and held it in its hands expectantly. She took the second dongkho, filled with the hot embers, and made the gesture of heating her oiled arms and legs.

The migoi immediately did the same thing. She was careful not to burn herself but the migoi did not understand and it held the still burning embers so close that its well oiled fur immediately ignited and began to burn.

The enormous creature stood up with a start and hastily threw down the dongkho, but it was too late. The migoi was on fire. It ran out of the cave growling and howling. Then it began to jump about and dance in panic, unknowingly fanning the fire to a frenzied blaze. Soon the migoi's body was engulfed in a ball of fire.

The girl watched on somewhat surprised, for she had not fully anticipated the immediate impact of her actions. As the flaming ball of fur rolled down the entire expanse of today's communal pastures of Goelak, and then disappeared into the thick forest at the bottom of the hill, one word kept surfacing and resurfacing in her excited mind, "Goelak, Goelak." Slowly she formed the syllables and finally said the word out loud, "Goelak" she then turned to go back into the cave to resume her search for her missing brother.

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